handy, free web tool for pricing coins on the fly

The price guides all have their positives and negatives, with the most commonly shared complaint being that they seem to be somewhat inflated...

Many people turn to recent eBay auction sales to determine what the market will bear for any given year grade variety, etc... and it's really not a bad gauge. Certainly it's a lot better than looking at Buy Now prices that might not sell because they're outrageously or even a little bit too high or even absurd start prices for auctions with zero bids.

This said, getting to eBay sales history is a bit of a pain in the neck, especially if you do it from the sales listing displays. To do so, though, you can hit the ADVANCED link in the upper right, then you have to click the SOLD checkbox about mid left. There are other nice features to customize your search but those are the two basics. Then you hit search. It works, it's informative but I got tired of doing it.

So, I put up this one screen web site gets you there quicker. It's free, there's no advertising, it doesn't ask for any personal information. It's just a nice little tool that consolidates and automates what the paragraph above describes. Enjoy.

Guest UserGuest

welcome. any suggestions, please feel free to send them along. at first i had drop downs for varieties and mint marks and junk... overkill. you type what you're looking for and hit enter. no need to click the button, enter does it on most devices.

I like it. The only thing - and it could be that I still have anesthesia in the brain - is that it took me a couple of clicks on the your link before i figured out that the link was not going to take me anywhere and that I should type my search term in between the two long lines! Duh! So, perhaps you could clarify that? Like: Type your search term below?

I like it. The only thing - and it could be that I still have anesthesia in the brain - is that it took me a couple of clicks on the your link before i figured out that the link was not going to take me anywhere and that I should type my search term in between the two long lines! Duh! So, perhaps you could clarify that? Like: Type your search term below?

I don't have any other suggestions. I even like the stark black white of it. But, if you twisted my arm until I came up with one more suggestion, then I might suggest: Perhaps experiment with the faintest palest grey/silvery or beige/goldish) repeating design against your white background (not too small - maybe real life size)comprised of a reverse of some interesting ancient coin or the reverses of a few different coins that represent ancient, world and US coins.

I don't have any other suggestions. I even like the stark black white of it. But, if you twisted my arm until I came up with one more suggestion, then I might suggest: Perhaps experiment with the faintest palest grey/silvery or beige/goldish) repeating design against your white background (not too small - maybe real life size)comprised of a reverse of some interesting ancient coin or the reverses of a few different coins that represent ancient, world and US coins.

Okay, you can twisting my arm now!
Thanks.
That hurts!

Click to expand...

email me an image file...?
better yet I'll let people register with an email address and then you can set your own background image how about that?maybe put a little profile on there too if you want it. I'll do that tomorrow for you if you want okay?

I like your idea. I like that I can set my own background. Yep, that's the ticket!
Sure, just message me about what you need to do that. And I can think about what I'm going to put there Ohhh..I knoww...Muahhahhahaha

I like your idea. I like that I can set my own background. Yep, that's the ticket!
Sure, just message me about what you need to do that. And I can think about what I'm going to put there Ohhh..I knoww...Muahhahhahaha

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i'll let you set preferences...
i'll update this thread when it's ready...
note there's now a link to this thread at the very bottom of the page...

I must say, I'm impressed! It's quick and efficient, and gives you the info you need. Great job!

The one think I would love to see would be able to find average selling price for X coin in X grade. Ie., you select the grade, and the coin, and it takes the average selling price of all sold in the time period ebay goes back (what is that now, 3 months?), and just spits out a number (the avg selling price).

I of course realize that this would not be an easy task, it's just on my "I wish someone would do this" list.

I must say, I'm impressed! It's quick and efficient, and gives you the info you need. Great job!

The one think I would love to see would be able to find average selling price for X coin in X grade. Ie., you select the grade, and the coin, and it takes the average selling price of all sold in the time period ebay goes back (what is that now, 3 months?), and just spits out a number (the avg selling price).

I of course realize that this would not be an easy task, it's just on my "I wish someone would do this" list.

Click to expand...

Probably this type of filter would only consider coins that were graded by universally accepted grading companies and would not include coins casually graded by coin owners and dealers where the coins are not slabbed or otherwise certified (if there is any other way a coin can be certified).

I must say, I'm impressed! It's quick and efficient, and gives you the info you need. Great job!

The one think I would love to see would be able to find average selling price for X coin in X grade. Ie., you select the grade, and the coin, and it takes the average selling price of all sold in the time period ebay goes back (what is that now, 3 months?), and just spits out a number (the avg selling price).

I of course realize that this would not be an easy task, it's just on my "I wish someone would do this" list.

Click to expand...

the last, I wish I could do that for you. I wish I could do it for me. The problem there is that eBay does not allow me to read their page with a program. Their server is smart enough to detect that it's not just someone looking at the screen it is smart enough to realize that it is an automated request to download the page and read the screen. As a result I cannot do what's called scrape the page. In other words copy it to load it to a file and then read it programmatically to do exactly what you're asking for. Other websites allow you to do that. Not eBay. However I can do that with other websites I won't name names but certain third-party grading companies come to mind. A number of other opportunities exist also.in general though, anything that you can think of, can be done. I'd also like you to note how quickly some of these little changes can be made. Sometimes they're extremely easy. The hard ones take a little time, but the real challenge is coming up with the idea. I've been doing this a long time and for some of the biggest companies in the world you probably have 20 names in your cupboard and around your house of household products that I've written the software for. Not tooting my own horn, it's just what I do. Or what I used to do. I just retired. So if you have anything that you're interested in I love new ideas.